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She was born Marie-Thérèse Aurore Louise Clément in Soissons, Aisne. Following the death of her father, as a young girl she had to go to work to support her family. For a time she did modeling in Paris until being offered a film role. Since her appearance in Lacombe Lucien (1974), a film directed by Louis Malle, she has usually been cast in supporting roles but has worked steadily.

Her first appearance in a U.S. movie would have been in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), but her scenes — a long sequence where Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) meets French former colonists — were eventually cut from the film and only restored in 2001 in the Redux version. She has also been cast in television films.

In France, Clément made her debuts on stage in 1988, with The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs, adapted from George Moore's short story, and won an acting prize from The French Association of Theatre critics. She has been seen in several plays, including Marguerite Duras' Les Eaux et Forêts and Alexandre Dumas fils' La Dame aux Camélias alongside Isabelle Adjani, for which she has been nominated for the Molieres (the equivalent of the American Tony's)